What You Can Do To Ensure A Successful Lifestyle Newborn Session || CopperRed Photography

I love that you care enough to ask this question and the answer is…SO much.

There is honestly a lot of things you could do to assist me in making this session incredible. As I know that a lot of my families are dying to help and do whatever they can I thought I would pop a little blog together to share the tips I have for you. So if you are totally up for it, grab a cuppa and dig into these tips as you get ridiculously excited that you are about to welcome a new baby into your tribe! (So crazy!)

A || Collect ALL The Things

One of Lifestyle Newborn Photographies greatest assets is the ability for it to incorporate pretty much anything and everything you wish. Now I’m not talking about in a chessy, over the top headband that’s bigger than your babies head kinda way but more in the way of reflecting your family, it’s history, it’s passions and it’s style.

So as much as we don’t do super awkward posing we 100% stage and pre-plan. So pop on your thinking cap and get together all the things you might want to use. Grab your absolute hands down favourite wrap that you just love putting them in, go get the moses basket that you used to go in as a baby or the stuffy that was your moms, then yours and now theirs.

Don’t forget to think outside of the norm too and consider your walls. Do you have a particular piece of artwork that means the world to you and you’d love to have in the background. Is that great grandma’s rocking chair in the basement that would be a beautiful family heirloom to get into some shots?

Get it all together and accessible. Put it all where it needs to be so that when I rock up the morning of your session we can jump right in.

B || Be As Ready To Go As Possible

Now we all know that babies are super unpredictable, especially in these early weeks but we can try to be as ready as possible for the start time. The lifestyle newborn sessions run between 1 to 1.5 hours so we want to get as much shooting done in that time as possible.

So things to think about would be you being in the outfits you want to be in. Have any hair and make up all done and dusted and all those things from above put together the night before. I want to get you as many gorgeous photographs as possible and the more shooting time we have the more I can get for you.

C || Embrace Some Heat

One of the biggest issues to a smooth shoot I encounter is cold. During the lifestyle sessions we love to get the little one down to a onsie and shoot those crazy edible details like toes, hands and thigh rolls. You know the bits that make us all go arghh and want to squish them lol. Problem is that sometimes the AC is cranking and so baby gets chilly when they’re all stripped down. The heat also helps to keep baby nice and sound asleep which is the goal for 80% of the session.

That sometimes surprises people. Yes we want them asleep. Now don’t get me wrong I want them awake too but only for about 10 minutes lol. I want to capture some cute eyes open shots but the majority of the session is easiest when they sleep soundly and heat aids in this. So if you are a lover of a cooler house try your best to leave it a little warmer just for the newborn session. Once I’ve gone you can crank that AC back to an igloo lol.

D || Hide The Clutter

There’s a blog I posted a couple of weeks back that’s got some tips and tricks to having your home pinterest worthy for your photo shoot without a ton of work that you can check out if you fancy it. The short version of that blog though is this lol, hide the clutter from coffee and bedside tables and put on some fresh matching bed sheets.

Lifestyle Newborn Photography is shot in your home and so your home is in the shots. You don’t need to do a spring clean but just have a look around to see what you could move to give a cleaner look. Shove it under the bed, behind the sofa or stick it in the empty guest room lol. You’ll thank yourself later for the extra effort when you see how awesome your photos turn out.

TIP: Pop a 1 hour cleaner on your Baby Shower Gift List. Maybe a friend will sign themselves up for it and you can book them to come in the night before the session. That way they do the work and you reap the benefits. Plus everyone’s looking to find ways to help you out when you have a new baby so this is a great one!

E || Be Game For Using The Drug Of Choice - Milk

Sometimes babies are just a bit fussy and it just bad photography luck that our session is booked smack on that time. So what can we do? Milk lol. Yup milk is the drug of choice for newborn photography lol. So even though your little one may not be due a feed for a while is may be necessary for us to use it as a tool to get them settled and sleepy. Sometimes you can plan to have a feed right before I arrive which is incredible timing but equally life with a newborn doesn’t always go to our planned our schedule lol. So don’t panic but just be prepped that we may need a little top up during the shoot in order to get as much out of our time as possible.

And there you have it. My go-to list of tips for you to help me make your newborn session as productive and smooth as possible. You can do as much or as little of it as you wish. No matter what we will make it work and get some down right gorgeous photos . Each and every session is different and that’s what makes them so special.